International Political Science Review (2004), Vol 25, No.

3, 259–279

The State of the State: The Model of the Modern

State and its Contemporary Transformation

ROLAND AXTMANN

ABSTRACT. The first part of this article sketches the ideal-type of the
territorially consolidated, sovereign nation-state. The second part
discusses how the assumptions of “homogeneity,” “unity,” and
“sovereignty” that underlie this ideal-type have become problematized
over the past few decades. The moves toward a state form that
institutionalizes polycentricity, heterogeneity, and plurality are discussed
in the context of the conflict between nationalism and multiculturalism;
the internationalization of the state; and geopolitical transformations.
Methodologically, the article puts forward an argument in favor of a
historically informed institutional analysis of state transformations.
Keywords: • Globalization • Governance • Sovereignty • State

For the past two centuries or so, the territorially consolidated, centralized,
sovereign state has been the dominant paradigm in western political thought and
western mainstream political science. It constituted the ideal of the well-ordered,
western, modern political community. It was considered to be the model which
any political community that strove toward modernity was expected to embrace.
From the vantage point of the early 21st century, we are well placed to review this
model and identify some of the significant transformations that it is undergoing as
the new century gathers pace.

(I) Key Concepts of the Modern State

(1) The Territorial State and the Unitary Sovereign Will
In “pre-modern” Europe, political authority was shared between a wide variety of
secular and religious institutions and individuals – between emperors, kings,
princes and nobility, bishops, abbots and the papacy, guilds and cities, agrarian

DOI: 10.1177/0192512104043016 © 2004 International Political Science Association

SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
260 International Political Science Review 25(3)

landlords, and “bourgeois” merchants and artisans, to name but the most impor-
tant ones. The modern state project aimed at replacing these overlapping and
often contentious jurisdictions through the institutions of a centralized state. This
endeavor was legitimized by the theory of sovereignty. This theory claimed the
supremacy of the government of any state over the people, resources, and,
ultimately, over all other authorities within the territory it controlled. “State
sovereignty” meant that final authority within the political community lay with the
state whose will legally, and rightfully, commanded without being commanded by
others, and whose will was thus “absolute” because it was not accountable to
anyone but itself (Anderson, 1996; Axtmann, 1996).
Historically, the idea of state sovereignty came to dominate political thought
after the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years’ War in
Europe. Then, governments recognized each others’ autonomy from external
interference in the most important matter of the time: religious belief. No longer,
so governments pledged, would they support foreign co-religionists in conflict
with their states. This agreement changed the balance of power between territorial
authority and confessional groups in favor of the state. It created the precondition
for the build-up of an effective system of control and supervision by the state over
its population. Such “sovereignty” is premised on the occupation and possession
of territory. The spatial dimension of territorial integrity manifests itself most
clearly in the drawing up of territorial boundaries that separate the “inside” (the
arena of the “domestic”) from the “outside” (the arena of the “international”).
“Governing” by the “sovereign” thus aimed to bring about the artful combination
of space, people, and resources in territorialized containments. As a result of
historical developments that spanned several centuries, the modern territorial
state came into existence as a differentiated ensemble of governmental institu-
tions, offices, and personnel that claims the exclusive power of authoritative
political rule-making for a population within a continuous territory that has a
clear, internationally recognized boundary.

(2) The Territorial State as a Homogeneous Nation-State

In the 19th century, the notion of the “nation”-state came to stand for the idea that
legitimate government could only be based upon the principle of national self-
determination and that, at least ideally, state and nation ought to be identical with
one another. The nation became the “unitary” body in which sovereignty resided.
Nationalism tightened the relation between “state” and “society.” Nationalism
aimed “to overcome local ethno-cultural diversity and to produce standardized
citizens whose loyalties to the nation [and its state] would be unchallenged by
extra-societal allegiances” (Robertson, 1990: 49). This political nationalism was
complemented by the nationalization of culture in the pursuit of the creation of a
national-societal identity. Cultural achievements became routinely claimed for
“nations”; culture became “nationalized” and “territorialized.” The universal-
ization of the nation-state norm went hand in hand with the “nationalization” of
culture. This development found one expression in “the expectation of
uniqueness of identity” (Robertson, 1990), and thus the norm of particularism
and localism. While the universalization of the nation-state norm contributed to
the global spread of the interstate system, (the idea of) the cultural homogen-
ization within the nation-state reinforced the cultural diversity of that system.
The success of the modern nation-state in the past 200 years or so rested on the
 AXTMANN: The State of the State 261

acceptance of its claim to be able to guarantee the physical security, the economic
well-being, and the cultural identity of its citizens. Through the monopolization of
coercion domestically in the form of police forces, and externally through military
forces, states aimed to enforce order and authority internally, uphold “national”
interests vis-à-vis other states externally, and ensure the safety and security of their
citizens more generally. The preparation for war and the waging of war also
allowed states to develop a strong appeal to the emotions and generate, as well as
strengthen, the loyalty of their citizens to “their” state and their sense of belonging
to “their” nation. Since the French Revolution, states have also turned their
attention increasingly to collecting and collating information about their citizens.
The development of the modern state depended upon effectively distinguishing
between citizens or subjects and possible interlopers, and regulating the physical
movements of each. States endeavored to define “who belongs and who does not,
who may come and go and who not” in order to develop the capacity to “embrace”
their own citizens in an attempt to extract from them the resources they needed to
reproduce themselves over time (Torpey, 2000: 2, 13). These regulatory endeavors
contributed to the efforts of states to construct homogeneous nations. States came
to address the “social question” through developing and institutionalizing welfare
policies; to restore order through policing “deviancy” and improving moral life; to
shape the national economy through state subsidies, the elimination of internal
trade barriers (such as tariffs), and the imposition of import duties; and to expand
the transport infrastructure as well as the communication infrastructure more
generally, including state education.

(3) Democratization and Popular Sovereignty

As a consequence of its activity, the modern state became the focal point for
political mobilization. Ever more social groups found themselves compelled to
strive to capture, or influence, the core institutions of the state in order to advance
their own objectives. Thus, the state pulled society into its political space, at the
same time as it was trying to shape society according to its own objectives. In this
process, state–society relations were tightened and social relations were “caged”
(Mann, 1993: 61) within the national rather than the local and regional or
transnational terrain. The state could no longer be evaded. It became imperative
for the state’s subjects to gain rights as citizens in order to be better able to control
its activities, share in the benefits it could bring, and lessen the negative effects of
its policies on the life of individuals, families, and communities.
In the course of the struggle for democratic rights, the “subjects” of the state
constituted themselves as “citizens” on whose sovereignty as a collective the power
and legitimacy of the state was claimed to rest. Sovereignty is understood to have
been transferred from the (monarchical) ruler to the people, and the people to
have been defined as the sum of legally equal citizens. The dominant under-
standing of “popular sovereignty” emerged out of a welding together of key ideas
from nationalism and liberalism. Liberalism aims to create a society in which
conditions obtain that enable the individual to exercise her or his capacity of self-
rule. In that respect, its key concern is with curtailing the power of other
individuals as well as of government to interfere with an individual’s freedom. The
democratic idea centers upon the assumption of the capacity of individuals as
citizens to govern themselves or, to put it differently, to determine for themselves
their collective life. It is assumed, first, that every adult individual can be rightly
262 International Political Science Review 25(3)

considered to be, in principle, sufficiently well qualified to participate in the

democratic process of governing the state to whose laws they are subjected. It is
further assumed that “among adults no persons are so definitely better qualified
than others that they should be entrusted with the complete and final authority
over the government of the state” (Dahl, 1998: 75, 76, 78).
The collective “self” whose own determination modern political liberalism aims
to ensure in the democratic process is the politically organized nation. Individuals
must be members of the state, must be its “nationals,” in order to possess citizen-
ship rights. Popular sovereignty is thus understood as the self-rule of nationals in
their capacity as citizens. This “liberal” conceptualization of “popular sovereignty”
is premised upon the acceptance of this dual notion of self-determination: the
capacity of the individual to govern herself or himself and the capacity of
individuals as citizens to govern themselves as a political community. Democratic
rule is exercised in the sovereign, territorially consolidated nation-state. In a
bounded territory, people’s sovereignty is the basis upon which democratic
decision-making takes place and “the people” are the addressees, or the constitu-
ents, of those political decisions. The territorially consolidated, democratic polity,
which is clearly demarcated from other political communities, is seen as rightly
governing itself and determining its own future through the interplay between
forces operating within its boundaries. Only in a sovereign state can the people’s
will command without being commanded by others.

(4) The Global Spread of the Idea of the Nation-State

In the 20th century, due to the global diffusion of the idea of the nation-state as an
institutionalized global norm and the extensive global legitimation of the
sovereign state as a primary feature of the world system, the sovereign nation-state
did indeed come to be considered as the “ultimate power” that could impose, and
enforce, order within a clearly demarcated territory, defend its territory and its
people against external enemies, and represent its people authoritatively abroad.
Yet, the spread of the nation-state norm beyond its European homeland was less a
matter of cultural “diffusion” and more the result of coercive imposition by
hegemonic western powers as an integral part of colonialism and imperialism
reaching back to the “age of discovery.” The European state ideal and its key
concept of sovereignty became a cornerstone of the global interstate system after
the Second World War. The breakup of empires and colonial states in the period
of decolonization created new states that were modeled on the European ideal
(while frequently retaining colonial borders as their territorial basis).
Furthermore, the Charter of the United Nations and its support for the principle
of state sovereignty and territorial integrity confirmed the centrality of the
European state ideal.
In an important discussion, Robert H. Jackson (1990) distinguished between
“negative” and “positive” sovereignty. For Jackson, “negative” sovereignty was a
formal legal condition under which states enjoyed rights of nonintervention and
other international immunities. Upon this legal foundation, a society of
independent and formally equal states fundamentally rests. A state which possesses
not only “negative” sovereignty, but also the capabilities and the wherewithal to
provide political goods for its citizens, enjoys “positive” sovereignty: “the means
which enables states to take advantage of their independence usually indicated by
able and responsible rulers and productive and allegiant citizens” (Jackson, 1990:
 AXTMANN: The State of the State 263

29). Jackson argued that, due to a shift in international norms after the Second
World War, many of the newly founded states in the era of decolonization attained
“statehood” not as a result of any evidence of capacity to rule (“empirical
statehood”), but through “juridical qualifications” (“juridical statehood”). These
“quasi-states” by definition are deficient and defective as apparatuses of power.
Their “sovereignty is derived not internally from empirical statehood but
externally from the states-system whose members have evidently decided and are
resolved that these jurisdictions shall not disappear. The quasi-state is upheld by
an external covenant among sovereign states” (Jackson, 1990: 168–9).1
In his analysis, Jackson disregarded the involvement of European powers in
demolishing many viable African polities in the course of the 19th century in
pursuit of geopolitical aggrandizement and economic profit. As Carolyn Warner
has argued, “through treaty violations, military conquest and occupations, and
alliances with disaffected groups, Europeans chipped away at the integrity of
African political systems” (1999: 254). After 1945, the same western powers, which
in the 19th century had destroyed “real” states in Africa, now created “quasi-
states.” Still, Jackson’s analytical distinctions allow us to suggest that the principle
of “negative” sovereignty was universalized after 1945, not that of “positive”
sovereignty. Structured around the principle of “negative” sovereignty the inter-
state system since the second half of the 20th century has been populated (to use
Jackson’s terminology) by both “real” states and “quasi-states”. We can see that a
“sovereign” right to ultimate authority and control does not imply an ability to
exercise it. The history of state formation can be analyzed as the protracted efforts
of rulers and their staff to translate “juridical” sovereignty into “empirical”
sovereignty.
Jackson’s conceptualizations have recently been taken up by Kjell Goldmann
(2001: 62–5), who distinguishes between “sovereignty,” on the one hand, and the
capacity of the state for effective action, or what he calls “autonomy” (defined in
terms of “action possibilities”), on the other hand. In his reading, the concept of
“sovereignty” refers to a legal right. “Internal sovereignty” is a constitutional
concept that pertains to the ultimate source of legitimate authority inside a state.
“External sovereignty” is, in a sense, an international law concept. A state’s
external sovereignty “is a function of its recognition by other countries as being in
legitimate possession of rights such as the right of non-interference by others in its
internal affairs, and the right not to be submitted to international norms and
decisions to which it has not consented” (Goldmann, 2001: 63). State capacity is
considered to be conceptually, and empirically, quite separate from either notion
of “sovereignty.” However, arguably, for a democratic regime such a distinction is
unintelligible. What could it possibly mean for a “people” to possess “sovereign”
rights while being incapable of acting upon these rights and turning its collective
will into an actuality? On these grounds, a distinction between “internal
sovereignty” and “capacity” would appear to be spurious. At the same time, tying
“popular sovereignty” to “state sovereignty” creates a major problem once the
sovereignty of the state is being eroded – as we will see in the second part of this
article.
To sum up, where modern state-building has been successful, the state is
constituted in terms of, and is expected to meet, six characteristic requirements:
First, it should be territorially distinct, possess a single source of sovereignty,
and enjoy legally unlimited authority within its boundary. Second, it should rest
264 International Political Science Review 25(3)

on a single set of constitutional principles and exhibit a singular and

unambiguous identity . . . Third . . . [it] represents a homogeneous legal space
within which its members move about freely, carrying with them a more or less
identical basket of rights and obligations. Fourth . . . all citizens are directly and
identically related to the state, not differentially or through their membership
of intermediate communities. Fifth, members of the state are deemed to
constitute a single and united people . . . Sixth and finally, if the state is
federally constituted, its component units should all enjoy the same rights and
powers (Parekh, 2002: 41–2).
In this reading, the territorially consolidated state is a thoroughly homogenizing
institution.

(II) The Modern State Transformed

The territorially consolidated, sovereign nation-state has faced increasing
pressures over the past few decades. I shall concentrate on some of those processes
that have had an impact on the homogeneity, unity, and sovereignty of the state.

(1) Multiculturalism meets Nationalism

Over the past few decades, in ever more countries, national and ethnic
communities with distinct languages, histories, and traditions have demanded
recognition and support for their cultural identity. They demand group-
differentiated rights, powers, status, or immunities that go beyond the common
rights of citizenship. These claims encompass demands for territorial autonomy
(ranging in its form from federalism to devolution and to the acquisition of the
status of “autonomous” region in either symmetrical or asymmetrical arrange-
ments); for self-government in certain key matters such as education, health, or
family law; for guaranteed representation in the political institutions of the larger
society on the basis of quota systems favorable to the group and guaranteed veto
powers over legislation and policies that centrally affect the respective minorities;
and for group-specific legal exemptions. These demands are premised upon the
belief that only by possessing and exercising these rights, powers, and immunities
will it be possible for these communities to ensure the full and free development
of their culture. A policy of assimilation, which aims to incorporate (or “melt”) the
“minority” into the dominant “majority” culture, is therefore not an option (Barry,
2000; Gagnon and Tully, 2001; Kelly, 2002; Kukathas, 2003; Kymlicka, 1995;
Kymlicka and Norman, 2000; Parekh, 2000).
These demands raise the question of the very nature, authority, and per-
manence of the “multicultural,” or rather “multicommunal,” state of which these
various cultural communities are part. Our prevailing assumptions of common
citizenship, common identity, and social and political cohesion will be questioned.
The question has arisen as to how these communities can coordinate their actions
in areas of common concern or common interest, for example, with regard to the
environment, the economy, or military security. The much more fragmented,
decentralized institutional pattern emerging from this diversity would have to
allow for the following: first, democratic, communal self-government; second, a
public debate on the matters communities have in common; third, protection of
legitimate powers to uphold autonomy; and, fourth, the political coordination of
 AXTMANN: The State of the State 265

the communities that keeps them part of one larger community. Given that many
of these communities have “transnational” political, economic, and cultural links
with their “home country” and retain a sense of loyalty to, and possibly derive even
their identity from, their “place of origin,” the state will find it difficult to facilitate
or, even more ambitiously, steer their interactions within the state territory
(Cohen, 1996). The net effect would appear to be a state that is limited to act as
the coordinator of these political and cultural networks that are formed by a
plethora of “cultural” communities.
The past few decades have also witnessed the revival of ethnic nationalism in
liberal democracies and secessionist threats by “internal” nationalities as well as
the related recognition of the “multinational” character of most “nation”-states.
These issues have dominated the domestic politics of countries such as the United
Kingdom (Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), Spain, Belgium, and Canada
(Quebec). Furthermore, we are also witnessing the political struggle of indigenous
peoples in white settler states (such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but
also, to an extent, in the USA) for recognition as free, equal, and self-governing
peoples (Ivison et al., 2000).
As “nations within” both “stateless nations” (such as the Catalans, the Scots, or
the Québécois) and indigenous peoples share the historical experience of an
existence of complete and functioning societies on their historic homeland before
being incorporated into a larger state. However, there are two major differences
between these two forms of “national minorities” in democratic states. First,
indigenous peoples in white settler societies were sometimes subjected to de facto
“genocidal” policies and generally threatened in their very physical survival to an
extent quite incomparable to anything experienced by most “stateless nations.”
Second, most “stateless nations” embrace a form of “civic” or “post-ethnic”
nationalism (such that group identities and membership are held to be fluid,
hybrid, and multiple), a form of nationalism they tend to share with the “majority
nation.” Indigenous peoples, on the other hand, are firmly (if not exclusively)
mobilizing around a more static, descent-based, and culturally exclusive concep-
tion of group identity and membership. To the extent that they do not (wish to)
speak the political language of “liberal nationalism,” and make demands for
official apologies for past humiliations and atrocities, indigenous peoples raise the
stakes in the intercultural dialog and challenge the assumption that political
accommodation could be achieved within the institutional arrangements of liberal
democracy (Kymlicka, 1995; Kymlicka and Norman, 2000).
The indigenous claim to “sovereignty without secession” develops the idea of
“nested” sovereignty, which demands the right of self-determination over those
jurisdictions of direct relevance to the indigenous people while at the same time
acknowledging a shared jurisdiction over certain lands and resources on the basis
of mutual consent (Tully, 2000). Indigenous demands raise, then, a number of
questions. What does it mean to do justice to indigenous claims within the
framework of a democratic and postcolonial state? Again, at stake is the need for
reconfiguring political authority structures as well as the redefinition of democ-
racy so that it should no longer be seen as an affair of a single body of citizens who
together constitute a single people, but rather as an affair of citizens who
constitute a plurality of diverse peoples, groups, and associations (see, for
example, Hindess, 2001; Wilson, 2001).
This multiculturalism, however, shares the political space with nationalism.
There are a number of structural reasons why nationalism is likely to remain a
266 International Political Science Review 25(3)

vibrant political force. First, nationalism is structurally embedded in the changes

in the interstate system. After the end of the Cold War, the geostrategic interests of
the superpowers can no longer be defined as necessitating the perpetuation of the
freezing of international borders on the grounds of security. As a result, demands
for independence within states can be voiced more persuasively along nationalist
lines. Second, the formation of regional blocs as part of the restructuring of the
global geopolitical and geo-economic space allows “small” states to conceive of
themselves as viable “independent” states within a larger formation. Nationalist
mobilization in pursuit of secession and independence is thus a potentially viable
opt-out strategy, as, for example, the experience of the Baltic States, the Czech
Republic, and Slovenia demonstrated with regard to the European Union (EU).
Third, the restructuring of the global economy adds to the chances of “survival” of
(at least some) smaller states: with the increasing importance of high-tech, high-
know-how economies, scale and space become less important in economic terms,
as Hong Kong and Singapore demonstrate. Even “city-states” have thus a good
chance of establishing themselves in the global system. Fourth, global capitalism
has brought in its wake regional disparities and economic dislocations. Deindus-
trialization and unemployment, rising prices, and declining living standards have
intensified the demands by citizens for protection and security. In this situation,
citizens expect their governments to act on their behalf and in their interest.
Should such policies not be forthcoming, or else turn out to be ineffectual,
extreme nationalism and right-wing extremism may then become popular among
those social classes and groups most adversely affected by the processes of
economic globalization, and thus excluded from strategies of purchasing
“privatized” services.
Lastly, it is a key aspect of the contemporary stage of global interconnectedness
that concrete societies situate themselves in the context of a world complex of
societies, that they conceptualize themselves as part of a global order. As a result of
this global self-reflection, the criteria for societal change and conduct tend to
become “matters of inter-societal, inter-continental, inter-civilizational, and inter-
doctrinal interpretation and debate” (Robertson and Chirico, 1985: 237). Such a
situating of societies may engender strains and even discontent within societies. It
heightens the significance of the problem of societal order in relation to global
order and is thus likely to give rise to a large number of political-ideological and
religious movements with conflicting definitions of the location of their society in
relation to the rest of the world and global circumstances as a whole. A
“nationalist” discourse and mobilization are situated within this structural
configuration.

(2) Some Structural Causes for Societal Heterogeneity

Western societies are increasingly understood to be “multicultural” societies in
which distinct and cohesive communities demand the recognition and institu-
tionalization of group rights in order to preserve their culturally and morally
distinct way of life. They increasingly resemble an assemblage of national, ethnic,
cultural, or religious communities with distinct languages, histories, traditions,
and more or less complete institutional structures. In order to ensure the full and
free development of their culture, these communities demand the right to govern
themselves in certain key matters, urging the transfer of power and legislative
jurisdictions from central government to their own communities.
 AXTMANN: The State of the State 267

The cultural heterogeneity that manifests itself in such a pluralization of

societal communities is complemented by the state’s decline in its capacity to act
as a moral (or moralizing) agent. The modern state achieved societal integration
through developing capabilities for the gathering, storing, and controlling of
information. Through their very activities, routines, and rituals states “define, in
great detail, acceptable forms and images of social activity and individual and
collective identity”:
The routines of state both materialize and take for granted particular
definitions. “How things are” (allowed to be) is not simply a matter of
ideological assertion . . . it is concretized in laws, judicial decisions (and their
compilation as case law), registers, census returns, licenses, charters, tax forms,
and all the other myriad ways in which the State states and individualities are
regulated. . . . [This is a] massively authoritative organization of what is to
count as reality. This system of power is inseparably also a system of knowledge,
both in terms of quantity (how much the state knows, its “intelligence” . . .) and
quality (the authority claimed for it, other sources of knowledge being less
authoritative by the very fact of being unauthorized). (Corrigan and Sayer,
1985: 197, also 3–4)
As a moral regulator, the state “creates” society; it “regulates” and “disciplines”
social relationships in that territorial space over which it claims sovereignty. In this
perspective, the state, of necessity, is a moral (or moralizing) agent.
Recently, however, the state as an integrating force through moral regulation
has become ever less powerful. We have been witnessing an increasing
disenchantment with the project of the Enlightenment, which was informed by
the belief that we could become the masters of our own destiny through the
advance of human knowledge of, and intervention in, social and material reality.
This belief in “progress” through reason and “instrumental” rationality has been
shattered and it has become evident that “progress,” based on the application of
science, has resulted in an increase in uncertainty and the creation of new risks
threatening the survival of humankind (Beck, 1996). The new risks are not open
to mechanisms of “command and obedience.” Though in some areas, such as the
behavior of individuals regarding the environment, monetary inducements or
penalties (fines and taxes) can be used to influence behavior, with regard to many
risks, monetary penalties are useless (for example, AIDS). In these instances, the
state has to rely on education and persuasion. An authoritative solution to these
questions imposed from the “center” has become illusionary; instead, the state
must attempt to “convince” the people through dialog. Furthermore, these new
risks are the result not just of a particular combination of knowledge, practice, and
social interest that came together in the technocratic manifestation of rationality
and reason. Rather, they are deeply implicated in the process of structural
differentiation that is the hallmark of modernity.
That modern society is characterized by functional differentiation is, of course,
a widely shared view. The institutionalization of the separation, for example, of
church and state, of politics and economics, or of religion and science was not the
inevitable result of evolutionary processes, but rather the consequence of social
and political struggles. From a political perspective, the institutionalization of
separate spheres of action with considerable (and constitutionally protected)
autonomy meant also a diffusion of social power and, by the same token, a
limitation to any attempts at centralizing power. Differentiation also allowed for a
268 International Political Science Review 25(3)

more “efficient” realization of the respective goals of the “subsystems”: knowledge

could be more efficiently produced once science and religion had become
differentiated or the production of commodities and the satisfaction of needs
could be more efficiently organized once politics and economics had become
institutionalized as distinct structures of social action. Restrictions on the exercise
of any centralized power as well as the dynamic of the “subsystems” as a result of
the increase in “efficiency” (in the sense of acting according to the system-specific
criterion of rationality) lie behind the incessant drive to ever greater special-
ization, professionalization, and organizational structuration of each “subsystem.”
Yet, we must not overlook that the functionally differentiated “subsystems” tend
to be interconnected – for the very simple reason that all subsystems aim to
externalize negative effects or costs of their mode of operation. For example, the
economic subsystem in its capitalist form has always externalized the cost of
securing the existence of the worker and let other forms of association, such as the
family, state, or charitable organizations, deal with it. Notwithstanding these inter-
connections and degrees of integration, however, we live in a world of radical
uncertainty. A radical plurality and diversity of opinions, norms, values, and
expectations underpin a politics which cannot any longer be grounded in a
recourse to tradition or transcendence and which has to accommodate wide-
ranging moral reflections on “progress” and the ambivalences of “modernity”
without the possibility of appealing to a set of universal principles. The opinions
and decisions of the experts are as unlikely as majoritarian decision-making
conclusively to settle and solve these “existential” moral and ethical matters. With
the incapability of the state authoritatively to impose decisions, with the
delegitimization and demonopolization of experts and their expertise, and with
the formation of radical diversity among the population at large, new ways will
have to be found to uphold societal integration.
It is highly questionable, however, whether under these conditions governance
aimed at achieving integration can be reinvented through the establishment of
wide-ranging regimes of government using thorough auditing as a strategy of
reflexive self-ordering (Power, 1997). In many western states, we can witness the
introduction of intensified normatizing regulation by a new class of supervisory
professionals (such as school inspectors, social workers, and accountants), who,
with lists of performance indicators and “best practice” models, contribute to the
attempt to achieve hierarchical control in a decentered environment character-
ized by strong pressures toward autonomy. The problem with such a system of
government by audit is, first, the systematic increase in governmental surveillance,
with its attendant threat to civil liberties. Second, surveillance based on norms
radicalizes “a clash between standardized definitions of norms and the widely
different values groups of citizens bring to issues like healthcare, education,
environmental protection, public health and moral conduct” (Hirst, 2000: 284).
Enlisting third parties and their related technological expertise into regulatory
governmental structures remains part of an ideology of unitary governance,
premised on the notion of “one-size-fits-all policies,” in a world that has become
polycentric, heterogeneous, and pluralized.

(3) The Internationalization of the State and Democratic Governance

In a recent study, Kjell Goldmann (2001) has analyzed the structural transfor-
mation of the European nation-state in the direction of the internationalization of
 AXTMANN: The State of the State 269

the state. He discerns three “master” processes of internationalization. First,

the “internationalization of problems” means that many of the political problems
that a country faces come (increasingly) from abroad. Examples include
environmental problems or crime. Second, the intensification of all kinds of
human relations across nation-state borders manifests societal international-
ization: the “internationalization of societies” comprises an increasing exchange of
goods, services, people, information, and ideas. Third, there is an increase in the
“internationality” of political decision-making. This internationalization expresses
itself in the “intensity” of decision-making, running from consultation with other
states before national decisions are made to negotiated international agreements,
on to decision-making by intergovernmental organizations, and, finally, to
supranational decision-making. The “scope” of internationalized decision-making
has also changed insofar as we witness the proliferation of international decision-
making to new, and ever-expanding, policy areas (Goldmann, 2001: 8–17).
These three dimensions of internationalization reinforce each other. With
policy problems being increasingly contingent on conditions, actions, or events
abroad, it makes sense for governments to seek solutions at the international level.
Yet, participation in international decision-making, particularly in institutionalized
settings, tends to make the concerns of the other participants into one’s own.
Positions on policy matters may have to be formulated which could otherwise have
been sidestepped. Societal internationalization may contribute to the inter-
nationalization of national agendas and internationalized decision-making. On
the one hand, for example, transnational economic relations or the increasing
transnational movement of people, goods, and capital contain forces beyond
national control and may require international cooperation. On the other hand,
the societal perception of problems as being of “international” significance may
lead to transnational cooperation between societal actors and hence to societal
internationalization, as the examples of the peace and environmental movements
demonstrate. Societal internationalization, in turn, may be fostered by increased
political cooperation. For example, as the case of the EU shows, transnational
cooperation between special interests may be encouraged by internationalized
decision-making (Goldmann, 2001: Ch. 2).
If, despite these interdependencies, we focus on the structural effects of
internationalization on the state, we may discern two major developments
(Brenner, 1998: 60–7; Jessop, 2002). The first trend is the “denationalization of
the state”:
This is reflected empirically in the “hollowing out” of the national state
apparatus with old and new state capacities being reorganized territorially and
functionally on supranational, national, subnational and translocal levels as
attempts are made by state managers on different territorial scales to enhance
their respective operational autonomies and strategic capacities. (Jessop, 2002:
195)
State powers are delegated “upward” to supraregional and international bodies,
“downward” to regional, urban, and local levels, and also “outwards,” as a result of
transborder cooperation, to relatively autonomous cross-national alliances among
local metropolitan or regional states with complementary interests. The second
trend is the “destatization of the political system” that manifests itself in the
strategic reorientation from government to governance:
270 International Political Science Review 25(3)

While denationalization concerns the territorial dispersion of the national

state’s activities . . . destatization involves redrawing the public–private divide,
reallocating tasks, and rearticulating the relationship between organizations
and tasks across this divide on whatever territorial scale(s) the state in question
acts. (Jessop, 2002: 199)
This development creates the political space for “civil society,” the “third sector,”
“private interest government,” “policy communities,” “policy networks,” and
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), that is, a space where states have either
entirely transferred responsibilities for managing economic and social relations to
parastatal, nongovernmental, private or commercial actors, or are exercising
“public” functions in “partnership” with these actors – the world of New Labour’s
(and Anthony Giddens’s) “Third Way” (see Giddens, 2001; Hirst and Thompson,
1999: 256–80; Jones, 2000: Ch. 8; Ronit, 2001).
The consequences of these developments for democratic governance would
seem to be obvious. As a result of a high level of societal differentiation and the
increasing transnationalization of a wide range of societal interactions, the effec-
tive political solution of ever more societal problems is being sought at a level
above or outside the nation-state. Multilateral institutions such as the United
Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World
Trade Organization (WTO) have acquired ever more authority, in some domains
thereby curtailing the “sovereignty” of their nation-state members. A similar
argument can be advanced with regard to the EU. Many transnational interactions,
and the transnationalization of economic action in particular, have hurried ahead
of the current possibilities for their political regulation. At the same time, the
structures and mechanisms of international regulatory policy-making (such as
international governmental organizations) are, in turn, more advanced than the
institutions for their democratic control.
This development has created an extreme tension between the effectiveness of
political problem-solving at the “international” level, on the one hand, and
democratic legitimacy which remains embedded in “domestic” political institu-
tional arrangements, on the other. This tension is aggravated by the repercussions
of international policy-making on domestic societies. As a result of the binding
force of international political agreements, democratic politics at the nation-state
level is increasingly curtailed. While “democracy beyond the nation-state” remains
weak, “democracy within the nation-state” is thus weakened as well. However, we
must remain aware of the fact that states are not all affected by these develop-
ments in the same way, as the case of the USA shows, for example. I shall return to
this matter later in this article.
The exercise of public functions by private agencies further adds to the
problem of democracy. These private agencies are essentially undemocratic and
the actors tend to be free from constraints from the wider community and often
unconstrained by the countervailing powers of governments. Citizens often lack
any real chance to exert influence on these private bodies. In addition, the
composition of the citizen body itself has become, as we saw above, problematic to
the extent that it fragments into a plurality of communities. Moreover, in the age
of globalization, as James Anderson (2002a: 28) has succinctly argued:
With huge advances in space-spanning technologies for moving people and
information . . . people’s actual social communities are more likely to be
spatially discontinuous, less territorially delimited, or defined by function
 AXTMANN: The State of the State 271

rather than territory; and their communities are also increasingly likely to vary,
or vary more widely, for different functions and purposes. People are
increasingly likely to have as much in common with individuals and groups
living in another part of their city or country, or across the border in another
country, as with their next-door neighbour.
Anderson rightly concludes that, as a result, “the social base for territorially
defined democracy becomes less coherent” (2002a: 28). Democratic rule thus
becomes problematic. The demands for establishing a “cosmopolitan,” “global,”
or “transnational” democracy emanate from the perception of such a democratic
deficit (Anderson, 2002b; Dower and Williams, 2002; Etzioni-Halevy, 2002; Held,
1995; Holden, 2000).
Yet, the changes we witness in the structure of the state are unlikely to lead to its
demise. First, nation-states retain the “nodal role” in the expanding web of state
powers, mediating between the increasing number of significant supranational
and the subnational scales of action. Second, in addition to the state’s key role in
inter-scalar articulation within the emerging governance structure, it “falls to the
state to facilitate collective learning about functional linkages and material
interdependencies among different sites and spheres of action” (Jessop, 2002:
203). Third, like national markets, global markets, too, need regulation. This may
mean regulation through international governmental organizations (such as the
IMF, the WTO, and the World Bank), intergovernmental mechanisms (such as the
meetings of the G7), or through the development of trade blocs. But markets,
NGOs, media companies, commercial organizations and interests, and all the
other institutions that propel globalization need a secure environment to prosper.
They look to the state to protect them from criminal or terrorist attack; to ensure
law and order and the stabilization and enforcement of property rights; to develop
communications infrastructure; to prepare the labor supply through education
and training; and, more generally, to provide economic support through
congenial tax regimes, subsidies, or other forms of state intervention (G. Gill,
2003: 246–55; Hirst and Thompson, 1999: 271–5). Evidently, there has also formed
a host of private regulatory systems, such as debt security or rating agencies, that
organize information for suppliers and (private as well as public) borrowers of
capital. There are also the various private bodies set up for international
commercial arbitration, such as the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris,
the American Arbitration Commission, or the London Court of International
Commercial Arbitration. In addition, there are the multinational legal firms which
feed into this (essentially private) Lex Mercatoria. Yet, in this as in other policy
areas, we observe that states together with international governmental organ-
izations, that have been the building blocks of the multilateral arrangements
entered into by sovereign states, are being drawn into a system of “complex
multilateralism” in which international NGOs, citizens’ movements, and multi-
national corporations share in the task of governance.
Fourth, states retain their importance for dealing with social conflicts and
securing the social cohesion of a society divided into classes and other forms of
social division (Jessop, 2002: 210–3). Through ameliorative action and welfare
services, states stabilize societies that may be experiencing disruption and
dislocation as a result of the effects of globalization. In effectively dealing with
these disruptions, states may not only retain their own legitimacy, but also provide
global processes with a veneer of legitimacy. Paul Hirst has argued that states “are
272 International Political Science Review 25(3)

pivots between international agencies and subnational activities because they

provide legitimacy as the exclusive voice of a territorially bounded population,”
going on to suggest that:
States ensure that, in a very mediated degree, international bodies are
answerable to the world’s key publics, and that decisions backed by the major
states can be enforced by international agencies because they will be reinforced
by domestic laws and local state power. (Hirst and Thompson, 1999: 276; see
also Hirst, 2001)
To the extent that states retain, and even expand, their power, the question of how
democratically and efficiently to control this state-based authority retains its
significance.

(4) Causes Behind the Transformation

How the state can go about discharging these functions depends, ultimately, on the
constellation of social forces and dynamics of the institutional structure in each
particular state. A comprehensive account of the formation of the sociopolitical
and institutional arrangements of states and changes in state form would have to
be embedded in an analytical history of state-building in Europe over the past
millennium. Such an endeavor is clearly outside the scope of this article. One
recently published study, which has been widely discussed within academia and
the general public, Philip Bobbitt’s The Shield of Achilles (2002a), gives a good
indication as to the required scope of such an exercise and the analytical problems
that adhere to it. Bobbitt sets out, according to the subtitle of his study, to trace
the course of history through an analysis of war and peace. This endeavor
necessitates an inquiry into the formation of the state and its varied institutional
manifestations and into the formation of the interstate systems, which are both
formed by the state and, in turn, contribute to innovations in state forms. For
Bobbitt, the state is distinctive in that the violence it deploys on behalf of its
subjects or citizens must be legitimate: “it must be accepted within as a matter of
law, and accepted without as an appropriate act of state sovereignty. Legitimacy
must cloak the violence of the State, or the State ceases to be” (2002a: 17). He
further argues that each state form is the outcome of “epochal wars”: “Because the
very nature of the State is at stake in epochal wars, the consequence of such wars is
the transformation of the State itself to cope with the strategic innovations that
determine the outcome of the conflict” (Bobbitt, 2002a: 333). Each great peace
conference that ended an epochal war therefore not only wrote a constitution for
the society of states, and hence reconstituted international order, but also ratified
the dominance of the victorious state form.
On the basis of this linkage between the state and legitimacy, Bobbitt
distinguishes between five state forms of the past which were ratified at five epoch-
defining peace conferences:
The princely state promised external security, the freedom from domination
and interference by foreign powers [Peace of Augsburg, 1555]. The kingly state
inherited this responsibility and added the promise of internal stability [Peace
of Westphalia, 1648]. The territorial state added the promise of expanding
material wealth [Treaty of Utrecht, 1713], to which the state-nation further
added the civil and political rights of popular sovereignty [Congress of Vienna,
 AXTMANN: The State of the State 273

1815]. To all these responsibilities the nation-state added the promise of

providing economic security and public goods to its people [Treaty of
Versailles, 1919]. (Bobbitt, 2002a: 215)
As far as our discussion is concerned, Bobbitt’s central claim is that the nation-
state can no longer fulfill its function of maintaining, nurturing, and improving
the conditions of its citizens. It will thus lose its legitimacy. This development has
been caused by strategic innovations that led to the victory of the liberal-
democratic version of the nation-state over both its fascist and communist variants.
The end of this epochal war came in the late 1980s with the collapse, first, of the
state socialist societies in central and eastern Europe and, second, of the Soviet
Union in 1991. It was ratified by an array of international treaties, which, in their
totality, constitute the Peace of Paris, 1990. Three strategic innovations that won
this epochal war (nuclear weapons, international communications, and the
technology of rapid mathematical computation) have wrought dramatic changes
in the military, cultural, and economic challenges that face the nation-state
(Bobbitt, 2002a: 216). Among the developments that he identifies as
fundamentally undermining the legitimizing premise of the nation-state, namely,
to better the wellbeing of the people, Bobbitt highlights five as of particular
importance: first, the recognition of human rights as norms that require
adherence within all states regardless of their internal laws; second, the
development of weapons of mass destruction that render the defense of state
borders ineffectual; third, the proliferation of global and transnational threats
(such as those that damage the environment or threaten states through migration,
disease, or famine) that no nation-state alone can control or evade; fourth, the
growth of global capitalism, which curtails the capacity of states for economic
management; and, fifth, the creation of a global communications network that
penetrates borders and threatens national languages, customs, and cultures
(Bobbitt, 2002a: 214–28, 2002b).
These developments, and the concomitant loss of legitimacy for the nation-
state, lead to a new constitutional order: a market-state that no longer aims to
improve the wellbeing of the nation, but to “make the world available” for the
individual by creating new worlds of choice and protecting the autonomy of the
person to choose (Bobbitt, 2002a: 233):
Such a [market-]state depends on the international capital markets and, to a
lesser degree, on the modern multinational business network to create stability
in the world economy, in preference to management by national or
transnational political bodies. Its political institutions are less representative . . .
than those of the nation-state. . . . Like the nation-state, the market-state
assesses its economic success or failure by its society’s ability to secure more and
better goods and services, but in contrast to the nation-state it does not see the
State as more than a minimal provider or redistributor. (Bobbitt, 2002a: 229)
This market-state comes in three variants. The mercantile market-state relies upon
a strong central government, protects national identities, subsidizes crucial
research and development, steers certain important enterprises toward success,
and, more generally, sacrifices the opportunities available to the consumer to the
long-term opportunities of the society. Japan may develop into this type. The
managerial market-state operates a “social market economy” organized around
free and open markets within a regional trading framework as a counterweight to
274 International Political Science Review 25(3)

national competition, a government that provides a safety net and manages a

stringent monetary policy, and a socially cohesive society. Germany and (possibly)
the European Union may approximate this variant. The entrepreneurial market-
state, based on a libertarian ethos, upholds the ideal of minimal state intervention
in the economy as well as in the private lives of its citizens. It also blurs the
distinction between the welfare of the single state and that of the society of states.
It seeks the sharing of collective goods within that society. Bobbitt counsels that
the USA should continue along the road to becoming a fully fledged, entre-
preneurial market-state (Bobbitt, 2002a: 336–7, 671–3).
The society of market-states, so Bobbitt avers, will be composed of multinational
companies, nongovernmental organizations, governments, and ad hoc coalitions
which will share overlapping authority within a framework of universal
commercial law, but regionalized political rule. It will be a system in which the
power and influence of the great international organizations of the society of
nation-states, institutions such as the World Bank, the United Nations, or the
International Court of Justice, will be much diminished (Bobbitt, 2002a: 363–4).
For Bobbitt, then, the transition from one state form to another is tech-
nologically determined, although mediated through political leadership or
“statecraft.” Once the state has embodied “technological innovations” in its (new)
institutional structures as a result of the considered choices made by its political
elites, it regains legitimacy and, hence, need not fear opposition or even resistance
from its citizens. The society of market-states will not abolish war, and therefore
does not signal “the end of history.” Yet, it is a manifestation of “the cunning of
reason,” the result of a wise acceptance of the necessary. Looking simply at the
theoretical framework of Bobbitt’s analysis, we may notice a complete lack of
inquiry into the field of social forces whose conflicts and contestations, struggles
and resistances mediate socio-structural change and political development, and
move history away from a trajectory of the inevitable toward an open-ended,
though structured, future.
An alternative theoretical framework would focus on the political economy of
the social reproduction of capitalism. In this perspective, globalization is not best
understood as an independent variable that “affects” the nation-state and its policy
capabilities – although such an erosion can be discerned. Globalization is not
“technologically” driven, but a political “project” aimed at stabilizing capitalism
through global economic management. Economic “globalization” has had
manifest “political” roots in the decisions and nondecisions of national govern-
ments over the past three decades or so, mainly in the area of macroeconomic
management (Boyer, 2000; Jones, 2000: 55–64). State policies of liberalization,
deregulation, and marketization that have been presented by national and trans-
national political and economic elites as a necessary and inevitable “response” to
the “challenges” of globalization to the nation-state have propelled (economic)
globalization forward, resulting in transition from the industrial welfare state to
the neoliberal “competition state” (Cerny, 2000).
This kind of global governance is premised on “the internationalization of the
state,” by which Stephen Gill (in contradistinction to Kjell Goldmann) means the
development of a state that has become increasingly attuned to and conditioned
and restructured by the pressures emanating from the global economy (S. Gill,
2003). At the heart of this project of global governance lies the attempt to “lock
in” commitments to liberalization and to “lock out” popular-democratic and
parliamentary forces from control over crucial economic, social, and ecological
 AXTMANN: The State of the State 275

policies (S. Gill, 2003: 214). This global governance is carried through by a
transnational class: “In addition to state managers (those embracing liberal-
ization), there are the new financial and transnational corporate elites combined
with the managers of the newly-empowered multilateral institutions like the IMF,
the World Bank and the World Trade Organization” (McMichael, 1996: 32). Thus,
we can detect a trend toward “the centralization of power in multilateral
institutions to set global rules and the internationalization of those rules in
national policy-making” (McMichael, 1996: 39). But we may also detect a trend
toward the formation of counter-hegemonic forces of resistance at the global level.
The networks of groups and movements that make up the protesters at WTO,
World Bank, or IMF meetings may serve as examples (S. Gill, 2003: Ch. 11).
The substantive differences between this position and that of Bobbitt need not
concern us in the context of our discussion. For example, pace Bobbitt, this line of
reasoning sees an increasing importance for intergovernmental organizations and
multilateral institutional arrangements because of their centrality in capitalist
regulation. Stephen Gill is also adamant that neoliberalism, rather than protecting
the privacy of the individual and respecting her or his autonomy, undermines
liberties and destroys civil society. This is for the simple reason that neoliberal
policies entrench social inequalities and dislocations as well as political
polarizations both locally and globally. For these reasons, “neo-liberalism
necessarily involves the use of coercive power, allied to practices of intensified
surveillance (‘transparency’) of populations” (S. Gill, 2003: 197).2
Nor do we need to list the similarities in their respective analyses. For example,
Bobbitt’s market-state is largely identical with the “internationalized state” and
there is also agreement that the neoliberal form of capitalism, prevalent in the
Anglo-Saxon world, can usefully be distinguished from more corporatist forms of
either an Asian or western European variety. Of greater importance for our
discussion are the differences in the theoretical framework. It is clear that, in
contrast to Bobbitt’s emphasis on the importance of “statecraft,” the alternative
perspective emphasizes the constellation of class forces, the formation of
transnational elites, their modes of interaction and institutional settings, as well as
the resistance they encounter in (local and global) civil societies. In this
perspective, we are invited to understand historical processes of social and politi-
cal structural transformation as outcomes of political contestations, and thus as
being amenable to collective agency.
The examination of the “opportunity structure” of collective agency may
require combining “political economy” with “comparative politics.” In all the
democratic nation-states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, we find well-developed systems of interest formation and inter-
mediation, of institutionalized conflict management and institutionalized norms
of social justice. Among the forces that have had the greatest impact on the
formation of these systems, the political, economic, and cultural struggles around
the formation of centralized, and secularized, state structures and of industrial-
capitalist national economies stand out. Of course, the precise cleavage structure
has been different in each country, and so have the course and outcome of the
struggles caused by it. As a result, each country has developed complexes of
interest formation and intermediation that are fairly idiosyncratic. In the process
of democratization and the formation of “mass politics,” each country has built up
political parties, trade unions, professional associations, voluntary associations,
special interest groups, and media for the formation and expression of public
276 International Political Science Review 25(3)

opinion. Yet party systems, structures of industrial relations, the incorporation of

interest groups into the political system, and the allocation of jurisdictions and
resources to subnational, regional, and municipal bodies have developed in
historically distinct ways in each case. The same is true of systems of social
inequality and class formation.
This observation applies, for example, to the specific mix of policies through
which national welfare states became institutionalized. “National” economies and
national welfare states exhibit distinct structures and institutional features that
influence the degree to which they are able to respond to, and even propel,
“globalization.” Furthermore, public welfare services must be wanted, and
demanded, by citizens, and citizens must be willing to pay for them. Such
solidaristic values and attitudes must be embedded in a national political culture,
but for them to be sustained, and acted upon, political mobilization and citizens’
involvement at the “local” level are necessary (Hirst and Thompson, 1999: Ch. 6).
An analysis of path dependency leads us to ask (to take yet another example) why
the highly internationalized smaller European states have higher than average
levels of public expenditure and extensive welfare provision, while their levels of
productivity and their record of job creation (as in the case of, for example,
Denmark and the Netherlands) is comparable to the USA. It allows us to under-
stand why countries such as South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan have relied on
domestic capital formation, rather than on policies to attract foreign capital, to
achieve high income levels or why Indonesia, with its reliance on foreign capital,
suffered more severe dislocations in the Asian Crisis of 1997–8 than Malaysia,
which had pursued a policy of exchange controls and of attracting long-term
direct investment (Jones, 2000: Ch. 10).
To explain such convergence and divergence in policies or structural reforms, it
is necessary to analyze how specific structures and structural configurations
reinforce selectively specific forms of action, tactics, or strategies and discourage
others. At the same time, social and political actors are capable of reflection about
“the strategic selectivities inscribed within structures so that they come to orient
their strategies and tactics in the light of their understanding of the current
conjuncture and their ‘feel for the game’” (Jessop, 2001: 1224). To the extent that
institutional structures are recursively reproduced through specific forms of
action, they are open to modification and transformation, and contain the
possibility of their decay. How these structures and the identity of relevant actors
are best defined in concrete cases remains, manifestly, a major challenge for the
analyst.

Notes
1. Reno (2000) discusses the interesting phenomenon of transnational private security
firms acting as mediators between “strong” and “weak” states.
2. For works relating to surveillance, see Garland (2001), Lyon (2001), McCahill (2002),
Torpey (2000), and Whitaker (1999).

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Biographical Note
ROLAND AXTMANN is a Reader in Politics and International Relations at the
University of Aberdeen. He also serves as the Associate Director of the university’s
Centre for the Study of Globalization. He has held visiting appointments at the
 AXTMANN: The State of the State 279

University of Graz (Austria), the University of Heidelberg (Germany), and the

University of California at Los Angeles (USA). He has published widely on matters
concerning democracy and democratic theory, on state formation in Europe
from a historical-sociological perspective, and macro-political change in the
current age of globalization. ADDRESS: Department of Politics and International
Relations, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 3QY, Scotland [email:
r.axtmann@abdn.ac.uk].